During the Israeli war on Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the Israeli
chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, said to the New York Times that he
wanted to deliver :

"a clear message to both greater Beirut and Lebanon that they've
swallowed a cancer and have to vomit it up, because if they don't their
country will pay a very high price." (NYTimes
July 15th, 2006)

Moshe Dayan (a former Israeli Defense Minister) wrote in the 1955 regarding the collective punishments
imposed on Palestinian civilian population by the Israeli Army:

"The only method that proved effective, not justified or moral but
effective, when Arabs plant mines on our side [in retaliation]. If we
try to search for the [particular] Arab [who planted mines], it has not
value. But if we harass the nearby village . . . then the population
there comes out against the [infiltrators] . . . and the Egyptian
Government and the Transjordan Government are [driven] to prevent such
incidents because their prestige is [assailed], as the Jews have opened
fire, and they are unready to begin a war . . . the method of collective
punishment so far has proved effective." (Righteous
Victims, p. 275-276)

And in the 1950s Dayan also stated on the same subject :

"We could not guard every water pipeline from being blown up and
every tree from being uprooted. We could not prevent every murder of a
worker in an orchard or a family in their beds. But it was in our power
to set high price for our blood, a price too high for the [Palestinian]
Arab community, the Arab army, or the Arab governments to think it worth
paying. . . . It was in our power to cause the Arab governments to
renounce 'the policy of strength' toward Israel by turning it into a
demonstration of weakness." (Iron
Wall, p. 103) The "too high" of a price Dayan is referring to is the
collective punishment such as house demolition, uprooting trees, ..etc.

Yitzhak Rabin (a former Israeli Prime Minister & the champion of
breaking bones of the stone throwers) wrote in his diary soon after
Lydda's
and
Ramla's
occupation on 10th-11th of July 1948:

"After attacking Lydda and then Ramla, .... What would they do with the 50,000 civilians living in the
two cities ..... Not even Ben-Gurion could offer a solution .... and
during the discussion at operation headquarters, he [Ben-Gurion]
remained silent, as was his habit in such situations. Clearly, we could
not leave [Lydda's] hostile and armed populace in our rear, where it
could endangered the supply route [to the troops who were] advancing
eastward.garush
otam in Hebrew]. 'Driving out' is a term with a harsh ring, ....
Psychologically, this was on of the most difficult actions we
undertook". (Soldier
of Peace, p. 140-141 &
Benny Morris, p. 207) .

Later, Rabin underlined the cruelty of the operation as mirrored in
the reaction of the soldiers, he stated during an interview (which was
censored in Israeli publications) with David Shipler from the New York
Times on October 22, 1979:

"Great Suffering was inflicted upon the men taking part in the
eviction action. [They] included youth-movement graduates who had been
inculcated with values such as international brotherhood and humaneness.
The eviction action went beyond the concepts they were used to. There
were some fellows who refused to take part. . . Prolonged propaganda
activities were required after the action . . . to explain why we were
obliged to undertake such a harsh and cruel action." ((Simha
Flapan, p. 101)

A Palmach (the Israeli strike force) report, written by Yigal Allon soon
after Operation Dani in the first half of July 1948, stated that the
expulsion of the
Lydda and
Ramle
Palestinian inhabitants, beside relieving Tel Aviv of a potential, long-term
threat, had:

"clogged the routes of the advance of the [Transjordan Arab] Legion
and had foisted upon the Arab economy the problem of "maintaining
another 45,000 souls . . . Moreover, the phenomenon of the flight of
tens of thousands will no doubt cause demoralization in every Arab area
[the refugees] reach . . . This victory will yet have great effect on
other sectors." (Benny
Morris, p. 211 &
Israel: A History, p. 218)

A month after the Nazi pogrom against Germany's Jews, famously known as
Kristallnacht, Ben-Gurion (the 1st Israeli Prime Minister) provided an interesting mathematical formula for
saving German Jewish kids. He stated in December 1938:

"If I knew it was possible to save all [Jewish] children of Germany
by their transfer to England and only half of them by transferring them
to Eretz-Yisrael, I would choose the latter----because we are faced not
only with the accounting of these [Jewish] children but also with the
historical accounting of the Jewish People." (Righteous
Victims, p. 162) Obviously, a person who cares this much about
Jewish Children would care about Palestinian Children!

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